


happiness in imperfection

by orphan_account



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Bulimia, Eating Disorders, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, denial of depression, dont worry about it im not gonna kill someone off but its just that their ending wont be 'perfect', happy ending tho??, lots of edgy material, ok but seriously this is really based on when i was in a horrible mental state
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-19 10:37:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14235462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: only jeno can save jaemin, but will he?based on my own experiences and other random things UMnmMmm should i continue it?? i kinda forced myself to write this loledit: im continuing it lol





	1. Chapter 1

It drives Jaemin wild.

But he watches from a distant, silent.  
Until one day, it bites him in the ass.  
_________

"Jaemin, why aren't you eating?" Haechan asks, worried.  
"I'm um, I don't like the food,"  
"Don't lie," Renjun chides.  
"I don't like the food," Jaemin says firmly, gritting his teeth.  
"Just leave him be..." Haechan says, sighing.  
"Ah...fine," Renjun says backing off.  
Jaemin walks away, his shoes clicking on the tile floor of the cafeteria, he walks into the restroom, hangs his head over the toilet seat and pushes his finger down his throat until bile and vomit come out.  
It's like a ritual to him.  
Like a god he had sacrificed his social life, his health, his whole being to. And that was what he had done. It wasn't that he liked doing, it was that he couldn't stop. Couldn't bring himself to let himself be fat. Couldn't bring himself to be as ugly as he had been.  
And he flushes the toilet and walks out of the stall. Like nothing ever happened, and if no one saw it, then it didn't.  
But someone did.  
__________

Lee Jeno.  
A sophomore at Seoul High, 15 with a cute and cheeky smile pasted on his face at all times. He was boring but sweet and kind personality with a passion for taking care of others.  
And he dyed his hair. A lot.

"Yah Jeno, stop dying your hair, you're gonna go bald by the time you're 20,"  
"But at least I'll still be hot...I mean have you seen this face?" Jeno wiggles his brows.  
"Ewww go away," Jisung says, pretending to throw up.  
Mark laughs.  
"I need to use the restroom to change my clothes, catch you bitches later," Jeno says, walking out of the room.

Jeno walks over to the restroom, which happens to have someone else in it.  
Awkward, but it's fine. He looks in the mirror, adjusting his hair and combing it.  
"Oh shoot...I forgot," he says, muttering to himself. " Agh whatever," he says, going into the stall, just as someone else enters.  
Jeno freezes up, feeling awkward. The restroom is dead silent, that is, until he hears the person throwing, which in all honesty, makes Jeno gag a little.  
Jeno takes off his shirt and slips on a clean one, quickly walking out.  
Wrong move.  
He meets the boy who he had just heard threw up, he's skinny, pale, and looks too worn out. Looks too sad, and looks too empty.

"Uhh are you okay?" Jeno asks softly, washing his hands.  
The boy washes his hands in the sink next to Jeno's.  
He simply nods his head.

Who is he?  
__________

Jaemin sits on his bed at home, poking at his thighs.  
Too much fat.  
He frowns, bringing out the scale.  
40kg.

He closes his eyes, and brings himself back to his past.

Jaemin had always been a cute kid, with chubby cheeks and a smile that could melt hearts, it's a shame that people seem to dislike the happy.  
"Hey fatass, would you stop stuffing your bitchass face with food? Shit...no wonder everyone talks about your pig ass behind your back..."

And one day, Jaemin decided to listen. Decided to stop stuffing his bitchass face with food so that everyone would stop talking about his pigass behind his back.

And they stopped, but Jaemin's fear lingered.  
__________

"Hey Mark, you know the students pretty well, you're in ASB and stuff...would you happen to know someone who's small and skinny with a short of sad look about him?"  
"Why? And no...that's too vague," Mark says, flipping through a catalogue  
"Ugh...no he was just super skinny and he was like, throwing up? So I'm just worried,"  
Mark frowns.  
"I dunno Jeno, it's not really your place to be having that kind of personal information,"  
"You know who it is, don't you,"  
Mark sighs. "Yeah,"  
"Don't tell me why, just tell me who,"  
"Jaemin, Na Jaemin, he's in our grade too,"  
"I haven't seen him around,"  
"No one has,"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> look deeper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING!!! I do NOT promote EDs in any way because I had to suffer with one for about a year or so and it's horrible. This fic is largely based off my feelings, thoughts, and experiences at the time.

Everyone has eyes, and Jaemin wonders if people would use theirs to prod his body. He stares in the mirror, staring blankly. But all he sees is ugly, the sight of his own face nauseates him and he wants to die. At least then he'd be relieved of the cruel reality that was his own existence. Overwhelmingly, he feels himself feel an ache in his heart, and it spreads to his whole body, making his body sore and it's awful.  
He lives alone, his house constantly empty. The only sound that filled his thoughts besides his own voice, were the soft shuffling sounds of his slippers on his feet. And at night he doesn't eat, obsesses over the calories in the glue seal of a letter.  
At first, the voices in his head, were replays of the taunts that tortured and haunted his mind.  
But from some point, the voice started becoming its own, started being Na Jaemin's voice that taunted him, that tortured him.  
And Jaemin, the sweet, cheeky smiled boy, wanted it to stop, screamed and begged, but those shrieks fell on careless ears.  
And it ate him up, or rather, he didn't eat it up.  
It started out small, a small obsession over the portion of his food, but it kept on growing, and as Jaemin's will to live shrank, his bulimia grew and grew.  
At some point he stopped being able to throw up as easily, so he turned to shoving chopsticks down his throat till the cheap wood cut his mouth up and left him obsessing over the calories in blood.  
He spent hours in the shower, just sitting there, letting hot water scald his back. If he couldn't receive emotional warmth might as well make up for it by burning your skin with hot water. His skin was raw and red and it was 10PM when he finished showering. He got in at 3AM. And he lays in bed for more hours, staring up at a ceiling that offered no answers to his questions, and wondering.  
________

"Jeno-ah," the girl places her slender fingers up Jeno's arms, grinning cutely. But Jeno is too absorbed in his thoughts to care, or acknowledge her presence. He thinks about the boy, of Jaemin, who looked so lifeless, so sad, and so burdened by a pain that Jeno couldn't understand.  
"Jeno," she repeats, more firmly, and more whinily.  
"What," he says, his voice soft and unbothered.  
"Could you help me on #3?" she says, pouting.  
"I haven't done it, and I have an C in this class, you know that. Don't ask me,"  
She shuts up, turning to her own desk, angered and embarrassed.  
Jeno stares at the clock, seeing it, but not looking at it. And he thinks, again. Of Jaemin, of his gaunt figure. The bell rings, he rushes to Mark's class, running with all his might.

"Mark, please help me,"


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow why am i being so productive??? anyways my plan is to update a lot but in small tidbits

what’s wrong?”  
“Jaemin,”  
“Look...I know you care about people and all but you don’t even know him,”  
“I know, but have you seen him?”  
Mark sighs.  
“Yes, everyone has,”  
“Then why,”  
“Look, lemme get lunch first and I’ll tell you,”  
Jeno sighs, impatient.  
Mark grabs a tray of food, giving the cashier some money.  
“Okay, let’s go to our room,”  
They walk to the art room, where they met up everyday, heels clicking softly on the white tile floors of the building. Jeno sits down on the couch, Mark sits across him.  
“Look, Jeno, I don’t think you really know Jaemin’s backstory. I mean...I don’t know too much, but I know enough to tell you that only he can help himself,”  
“What do you mean?”  
“What do you think I mean?”  
“Just answer my question,”  
“Well...I don’t know how to explain this, but he basically has a lot of mental issues that he’s in denial about, it’s almost like he wants to pretend he’s okay so that he doesn’t have to get better, but things are just going farther downhill,”  
“Is he...okay?”  
“No, but why do you wanna know?”  
“I don’t know, there’s something about him that makes me feel like he needs someone, and I want to be that someone,”  
“But why? You’re not planning to...use him, right?”  
“Oh god, no...I’m not like that,”  
“Ok good,” Mark stuffs his mouth with the salad.  
“Anyways, how do you know all of this?”  
“Haechan,”  
Jeno mouths an ‘Oh’ looking down at his feet.  
“Jeno, don’t push yourself too much yeah? I know you worry about people, but even the most vulnerable of people can hurt you, just don’t let them, be careful. I’d stop you, but you’d just...keep on doing it,”  
Jeno smiles, his eyes crinkling.  
________

“Haechan...what are we gonna do about Jaemin?” Renjun says, frowning.  
“I don’t know,”  
________


	4. Chapter 4

Jaemin is a broken boy. He does what broken boys do best. Cry and suffer in self pity. He does what all broken boys do, he deludes himself. Waters himself down thin like a glass of cheap beer. Things were easier that way he supposed. He was okay with living a lie, with living the lie he was. Because everyone seemed to like Na Jaemin more than Nana. Everyone seemed to like the pretty and skinny and sad boy more. More than Nana, more than the boy who still laughed because he wanted to, not because he was forced to. He let his feelings bubble within himself and explode when he felt it was best. His attacks were often directed on people like Renjun and Haechan. He knew they didn’t fucking deserve the shit he said to them. But still, he kept on saying it. As if his mouth was a crack and his words were a flood of water poutring through a leak. And when it was over, when the water was all over the ground messy and wet, he let it dry up on its own. 

“Fuck off Haechan, stop bitching around and let me live,”   


“Jaemin please, come on,”   


“Stop trying to make ugly,”   


“Jaemin I’m NOT,”  


“Jaemin, please,” Renjun chides in weakly.   


“STOP! Please...please don’t do this to me,” and he feels so weak and so childish and so ugly.  


“Jaemin, we just want what’s best for you,”  
“As if you would know what that is,”  
“We do,”  
Jaemin remembers the feeling of hot and angry tears running down his cheek and his wet face and the sinking feeling in his stomache when he had realized what he said.  
But his sadness was greater than his guilt.  
So the words continued to pour out, until Haechan and Renjun initally ignored him and always slowly, but surely began to talk to him again. 

But he was a lost cause. Because he was a broken boy.  
And it makes him want to puke and die and suffer. And he does just that. Lets himself starve, pukes until he’s lightheaded, considers what there is left in this world. And he repeats it like a sacred chant in his head. But it holds true, too true, too awful, too horrible.  
__________

“Hi, I’m Lee Jeno,”  
“I’m Jaemin,”  
“I’m glad we’re science partners this semester,” and the boy, Jeno, smiles. Jaemin knows who he is. The boy in the bathroom. His eyes crinkle, and he has such a pretty face. Such a pretty body.  
It makes Jaemin sick with jealousy. So he decides to dislike Lee Jeno.  
“Okay,” he answers coldly.  
The boy is taken aback, obviously offended. But he says nothing, only pouting.  
“Hey Jaemin,” Jeno says cutely.  
“What,”  
“Do you know what #3 is?”  
“Yes,”  
“Can you tell me, please?”  
“No, figure it out or ask the teacher,”  
“Oh...okay,” he says smiling again.  
Jaemin seriously wants to punch this boy.


End file.
